


Solitude plus one

by tinylilremus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, a lot of fluff, and Caleb reading a shitty romance book to Jester, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 09:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16344368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinylilremus/pseuds/tinylilremus
Summary: Caleb is initially annoyed when someone knocks at his door, interrupting his reading, but upon seeing that it's an out-of-sorts Jester, he doesn't mind as much. Books are better shared anyway.





	Solitude plus one

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S THE FOURTH ONE IN TWO WEEKS I CAN'T STOP IT

He's lying with his back propped up against the pillows reading his newest novel when the knock on his door comes. He has to fight back a growl of frustration.

_Please. Not while I'm reading._

Solitude has always been underrated in Caleb's opinion, and even more so now that he's rarely alone. He would never complain about his new little family – it's done the world of good for both him and Nott – but travelling with six other people, each with their own damage and drama, it's... it's a lot. He finds himself grateful for those times they end up in a town with a decent tavern and he can hole up in his room to take a few hours away from the rest of the party, because it's such a rare occurrence as their lives become weirder and weirder.

Which is why, under the impression that everyone was going to stay downstairs in the tavern, drinking and talking shit late into the night, he is frustrated that someone has suddenly changed their plans to bother him instead.

He chides himself. It’s not like they’re actively trying to annoy him, and he tries to fix his attitude a bit before answering the door.

He’s grateful he does when he sees that it's Jester on the other side of it.

"Jester, hi," he says, hoping he doesn't sound as flustered as he feels. "I thought you were partying it up with the others?"

"I was," she says in a small voice. "I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

"Not at all," he smiles. It's never a disturbance if it's Jester. "Would you like to come in?"

"Thanks," she says, stepping past him into the room. She offers him a smile, but it's small and tired and definitely nothing like the room-brightening grin she usually wears.

"Jess, is everything okay?" he asks, closing the door and turning to stand in front of her.

"I'm alright," she says. "A little blue, I guess."

The corner of her mouth tugs up a bit at her joke and Caleb can't help but smile a little bit too. He gestures for her to take a seat on the bed and sits down next to her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asks Caleb. "Or do you just want to be sad with someone for a while?"

"You see this is why I come to find you when I feel like this," she says, nudging him with her shoulder. "You get it. You don't try to cheer me up or make me feel like I have to pretend to be happier than I am."

"It would be very hypocritical of me to do so," he says as he nudges her back. "Look, I'll say this: we'll talk about it eventually because I'm learning that it's not healthy to hold onto that feeling all the time, but for now, if you just want to sit here and let yourself feel sad for a while, you're welcome to do so."

"Thank you, Caleb," she says, putting her head on his shoulder, and he rests his head on hers, carefully avoiding the end of her horn. "I think I'm just missing my mom a lot. I thought I couldn't wait to go out and explore the world, but I didn't realise how much it meant to me, seeing her every single day. Now it's been almost a year and I've only seen her for basically a few hours and there's not really much I can do about it."

"Not at the moment," says Caleb. "But I'm researching a few ideas that might make it easier to check up on her more often. Some of them are still a bit beyond my skills at the moment, but I'll let you know once I've got something that would work."

"You would do that for me?" Jester asks.

"Of course," he replies. The _'I would do anything for you'_ sits on the edge of his tongue, begging to be said, but he decides against it. "I know the way things are at the moment isn't really ideal, but we will make it right. You'll get to see your mom again and spend as much time with her as you'd like."

"Thanks, Caleb," says Jester softly. "That means a lot."

"You're always welcome, Blueberry."

It's quiet in the room for a while, before Jester sits up suddenly.

"Oh my gods, Caleb, were you reading?" she asks, gesturing to the book on the bedside table. "I'm so sorry; I know you don't like to be interrupted while you're reading."

"No that is only when people interrupt me for silly reasons like to ask which battle stance makes them look more badass or to ask if I'm enjoying the book that I'm clearly enjoying," he says, daring to take her hand for a moment to give it a reassuring squeeze. "You are much more important than a silly book."

He cringes as he says it, but Jester smiles.

"What were you reading anyway?"

"Oh, um, I think it's called _A Hope Drawn_ ," says Caleb. "It's entertaining, but definitely not intellectually stimulating. It's about this penniless but very talented artist who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time and through a series of misfortunes, has to pretend to be the apprentice of the portraitist he just accidentally killed – who was a really bad person, just so we're clear. And then some more stuff happens and he ends up falling in love with the woman whose portrait he's supposed to paint. Problem is, she's betrothed to someone else."

Jester can barely contain herself.

"Oh my god, Caleb, you _have_ to let me read this when you're finished with it," she says. "It sounds so good."

"Of course," he says with an amused chuckle. He should have known it's the kind of book Jester would instantly take to.

"Do you want to keep reading?" she asks. "If you don't mind it, I could read with you?"

"I think you would find my reading speed frustrating," he says, self-consciously. "Not that I'm saying your speed is slow, but with books I'm a bit of a freak of nature. Otherwise, I could read it out loud if you would like?"

"I would love that," she grins, grabbing the book and scrambling across the bed to settle against the pillows. Caleb hesitates for a moment at this, but Jester pats the bed next to her with a funny little eyebrow waggle and really, there's no resisting that.

As Caleb lies down next to her, she immediately shuffles closer and rests her head on his shoulder so that the whole right side of his body is Jester and the only way he'd be able to turn the pages is by putting his arm around her, effectively pinning her against him.

This is going to be _torture_.

"I'll try to explain things as I go along, but please stop me if something doesn't make sense."

"Got it," she says, and Caleb begins.

Jester turns out to be an amazing audience and an entertaining addition to the experience of the novel. She gasps in all the right places, throws in her thoughts whenever there's a pause to and even ends up crying when the artist, Grent, and the noblewoman, Nalina, kiss for the first time. He chuckles a little at this, which earns him a, "Shut up, Caleb. It's romantic, okay?"

The more comfortable he gets and the more enraptured Jester seems to become, Caleb finds himself increasingly bold in how he reads it. He dips his voice in the tense parts to create suspense and even tries his hand at voices and accents with the different characters. He's no Fjord when it comes to manipulating his voice, but he doesn't think he's doing too badly.

He reads and reads and reads, losing himself in the world of Grent and Nalina, feeling their joys and disappointments with them, feeling the growing apprehension as Grent's lies start spiraling out of control while he and Nalina fall more and more in love, knowing that it's going to end badly. And sure enough, in the very next chapter, Grent's lies start collapsing in on him. About the same time, Caleb loses his voice, but Jester, too invested in the story to stop now, casts healing word on him. The dry scratchiness immediately disappears and, mostly because he doesn't want this to ever end, he carries on with the story.

Nalina's heart is broken and she tells Grent, understandably, that she never wants to see him again. Jester cries at this too and it's so endearing that Caleb can't help but press a comforting kiss to the top of her head.

"I'm sure it will all work out in the end," he reassures her. "There's still a good eighth of the book left."

He can't quite believe they've read this much. They must have been here for hours, and in that time no one seems to have come looking for them, not even Nott, who's supposed to be sharing the room with him. He's not complaining, it just strikes him as odd. He pauses reading to hold the bit of wire to his mouth so that he can check up on his small friend.

 _"Nott, is everything alright?"_ he asks. _"I thought you would have been back ages ago."_

 _"Hi, Caleb, don’t worry – I'm sharing with Yasha,"_ she replies, her words slurring slightly. _"I got to the room and heard that you were finally getting somewhere with Jester and I didn't want to disturb you. Sorry if I made you worry."_

 _"I was concerned, but I'm glad to hear you're settled in for the night."_ He hesitates briefly, wondering if he should tell Nott what's actually going on between Jester and him, but decides it can probably wait until the morning when Nott is slightly more sober. _"Sleep well, little friend."_

There's no response, and Caleb assumes she has gone to sleep.

Next to him, Jester yawns loudly.

"Hey, are you tired?" he asks. "I don't have any plans for tomorrow so if you'd like, we can stop for tonight and carry on after some sleep?"

"Yeah," says Jester through another yawn. "I think that would probably be best. You don't mind if I stay here, do you? I'm just so comfy already that I don't really want to walk off to my room and ruin it all, you know?"

"I - ja," Caleb stammers, wondering what he's done to please the deities that would merit the day he's having. "Ja, of course you can stay."

It's a relatively warm night, so Caleb doesn't see the point in climbing under the thick quilt. Instead, he leans over to grab the woolen blanket folded across the foot of the bed and throws it over the two of them. With one last glance at Jester before the room goes dark, he blows out the candles.

"Well, goodnight, Caleb," she says.

"Goodnight," he replies, eyes heavy and his heart full.

For a while, the only sounds he can hear are the distant muffled sounds of laughter and merriment from down in the tavern and Jester's soft breathing, so he jumps when Jester speaks again.

"Sorry, I know I said goodnight, but I can't stop thinking about that book," she says.

"Oh?" says Caleb, his heart rate returning to normal. Or as normal as it can be with the woman he's hopelessly in love with mere inches away from him. "Which part?"

"The part where Grent won't tell Nalina that he's still in love with her because she thinks she'll be better off with Witrel because he's all rich and noble and whatever. It's so stupid that it’s actually keeping me awake. I just want to smack some sense into him."

"Don't you think he has a point?" asks Caleb. "Any life Grent gives her is going to be really difficult. Witrel seems to be a good man and a good leader. She would be able to achieve so much at his side."

"I don't doubt it," Jester responds. "I just think it's bullshit that she can't make up her own mind about it because she doesn't have all the facts because Grent is deliberately not telling her. He's deciding the rest of her life for her. At least let her know there's another option, man. I mean, what would you do, Caleb?"

It's a damn good question. It's been clear for a long time that Jester fancies Fjord and Caleb can't fault her. He's a very good-looking man, a strong leader and, from what Caleb has seen, a genuinely good person. He's convinced that Fjord has way more to offer Jester than some ratty-looking wizard with a past he's too scared to tell her about. But her words ring true. He can't assume and make the decision for her. It's not only his life that is affected by it.

So he takes a deep breath, and steels himself for whatever reaction he may get.

"I would say that while his reasons and intentions are good, you're right, he can't not give her that choice," he says. He's trembling and is suddenly regretting his decision to not climb under the quilt. He's also deeply grateful that this conversation was happening in the dark. He doesn't think he could cope with seeing Jester's expression through this next part. "Here's the thing: I know that you really like Fjord and that you are attracted to him. You don't make it that much of a secret. And I don't blame you. Even I'm attracted to him a little bit. You two make sense together. He's all calm and steady while you're all fun and whimsical. You balance each other out."

Another deep breath. He can do this.

"And even though I think that you would be far better off with him, to be completely honest with you, and at the risk of ruining our friendship forever, I have to tell you that I have been in love with you for ages and that tonight has been one of the best nights of my life."

Jester doesn't say anything and Caleb can feel himself rapidly spiraling into panic. What would she think of him now? Would she immediately go off and look for Fjord? Would she –

His thoughts are interrupted by the sudden force of something hitting his lips and it takes him a moment to realise that Jester is kissing him.

Jester is _kissing_ him.

And he's kissing her.

And suddenly he's furious with himself for not telling her sooner, because she's always been better at decisions than he has.

She pulls away, pressing a small kiss to his shoulder as she does.

"I’m in love with you too," she admits. "And trust me, if I wasn't so fucking tired right now I would be showing you exactly how much."

Caleb's head is spinning. He has no idea how she's able to be tired at a time like this. He's never been more awake.

"It's been one of the best nights of my life too."

"Jester..." he breathes out, pressing another kiss to her lips. It's quick and apprehensive, as if he's not sure how it will be received, but she leans into it and for a while that's all his mind can focus on.

"Thank you for giving me the choice, Caleb." He can hear the smile in her voice as he settles his head back down on the pillow. "I know it must have been difficult not knowing if it would go well."

"Clearly it was worth it," he says. There's a smile on his face that he's not sure he'll ever be able to get rid of. His hand is resting against Jester's cheek, and she kisses the inside of his wrist.

"Okay, I physically cannot stay awake anymore," she says and he can hear the smile in her voice. "Goodnight for real this time, sneaky wizard who cheers me up even though he says he's not going to."

"Goodnight, beautiful cleric who randomly shows up in my bedroom bringing chaos and joy."

And with one final happy hum, Jester's breathing slows as she falls asleep. It takes Caleb, whose veins are still thrumming with pure happiness and relief, far longer.

The last thing he sees in the pale dawn light that's starting to creep through his window is the outline of Jester, curled as close to him as she can get, and his heart is content.

He thinks he'll take this over solitude any day.


End file.
